But with 75 officers currently on the streets, the city is maintaining the smallest police force it has staffed in decades.

Join us on the Saginaw MLive site at 1:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 17, for a live chat on the future of public safety in Saginaw. City police and fire representatives, Saginaw County Sheriff William Federspiel and city officials have agreed to answer your questions on the topic.

Acting Police Chief Brian Lipe, left, and City Manager Darnell Earley taken part in a press conference at Saginaw City Hall on the results of the Administrative Review Task Force appointed to review the July 1, 2012, shooting of Milton Hall.Jeff Schrier | Mlive.com

"We'll give you the best police and fire departments that your tax dollars can afford you," Mayor Pro Tem Dennis Browning said. "But we can only spend what we can bring in."

The impact of the increasing cost of pensions and health care fore retired city workers was also laid out, at the meeting, as a primary cause of Saginaw's budget woes.

Staffing decline

Saginaw staffed more than 100 sworn officers every year from 1985-2004, with a high water mark of 150 officers. Staffing totals dropped to the mid-90s from 2005-2008, but rose above 100 again for 2009 and 2010.

Source: Saginaw Police Department

In 2011, the police force began to drop again, to 96 sworn officers.

In the 2011-2012 city budget, Saginaw City Council allocated enough funds for 91 officers, and a hiring freeze was implemented.

Due to officers leaving since the fiscal year began, city officials say Saginaw Police Department currently has 75 officers on duty, the department's lowest number of sworn officers in decades.

But the number of officers on Saginaw's streets in the last few decades has not had an obvious impact on the city's crime rates, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports.

The total number of violent and property crimes reported to the bureau has dropped dramatically from 1985 — from 1,592 violent crimes and 6,599 property crimes in 1985 to 1,213 violent crimes and 2,208 property crimes reported in 2010.

The 2010 violent crime rate, which is weighted by population, is actually below average for the previous 25-year period.

According to data in the FBI reports, Saginaw dropped from 75,152 residents in 1985 to 71,000 in 1995 and again to 59,093 in 2005. A 2011 population estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau puts the city at a new low: 51,230 residents.

Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports

The population-weighted violent crime rate has had its share of ups and downs in the last few decades, from a relatively low 2,118.4 rate in 1985 to a high of 3,413 in 1991. The rate has averaged 2,475.44 from 1985-2010.

The violent crime rate was 2,355 in 2010.

Placing graphs of Saginaw's violent crime statistics next to police staffing levels would lead an observer to, at best, drawn problematic conclusions about any correlation between the two figures.

Though 1999 had the lowest violent crime rate since 1985 (1753.3) and one of the highest officer counts (150), the most violent year in that span, 1991, also had a relatively high number of on-duty officers (140).

The years since the force dropped below 120 officers in 2002 produced only a slightly higher average violent crime rate, 2,711.1, from 2002-2010 when compared to the average rate of 2,342.9 from 1985-2001.

Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports

Property crime rate

One category of crime in Saginaw's history is clearly not related to police staffing levels. If anything, property crime rates appear to be inversely proportional to the numbers of officers at the department.

According to the FBI data, Saginaw experiences about one-third of the property crimes in did in 1985, when 6,599 were reported. In 2010, when Saginaw had more than 23,000 fewer residents, only 2,208 property crimes were reported.

Weighted by population for the UCR's property crime rate, the category of crime also steadily decreased from a rate of 8,780.9 in 1985 to 4,286.7 in 2010.

Staring down multi-million-dollar budget deficits in the years to come, Saginaw's city leaders have been looking for a way to balance the city's budget. City leaders say, because the police and fire departments make up a majority of the general fund budget, cuts to public safety must be part of the solution.

In a 6-3 vote, Saginaw City Council voted Thursday in favor of authorizing City Manager Darnell Earley to negotiate a contract with the sheriff. Many said they had reservations, but recognized that there are few good options to choose frome.